from the stupid-questions,-stupid-answers dept

Earlier this week, we highlighted a questionable poll done by the Pew Research folks concerning the Apple/FBI fight, and noted that the actual questions it asked were wrong and misleading (and also leading...) and that resulted in fairly meaningless results, which were then spun by reporters into false claims that the public backed the FBI in this fight:

And, once again, the poll is basically meaningless when it comes to the actual issues in this case. You can read the details of the questions in the linked document, which shows that, before asking the key question, the pollsters asked a bunch of questions about whether or not people were willing to "give up privacy" to help the US government on a variety of things. And lots of people said no. These questions more or less framed the issue as one about protecting your own privacy -- as compared to the Pew poll that framed it more as being about investigating the San Bernardino attacks. Then after all those questions, the poll asks about the specifics of the Apple case, where they frame the question much more broadly than Pew's. Here's Reuters question:

Apple is opposing a court order to unlock a smart phone
that was used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attack.
Apple is concerned that if it helps the FBI this time, it will be forced to
help the government in future cases that may not be linked to
national security, opening the door for hackers and potential future data breaches for smartphone users.
Do you agree or disagree with Apple’s decision to oppose the court
order?

And, to refresh your memory, here's how Pew asked it:

As you may know, RANDOMIZE: [the FBI has said that accessing the iPhone is an important part of their ongoing investigation into the San Bernardino attacks] while [Apple has said that unlocking the iPhone could compromise the security of other users’ information] do you think Apple [READ; RANDOMIZE]?

(1) Should unlock the iPhone (2) Should not unlock the iPhone (3) Don't Know.

Notice that the Reuters/Ipsos version focuses solely on the downsides laid out by Apple, and not the supposed intent of the FBI. The Pew poll tries to "balance" the two. Meanwhile both polls get the basic facts wrong, because the request is not to "unlock a smart phone" because Apple cannot "unlock it." The actual ask is that it build a new operating system (which has some big challenges) that has purposely undermined two key security features on the iPhone, so that the FBI can then hack the passcode and access the phone. The specifics here matter and neither poll gets them right.

So while I, personally, think Apple is the one to support in this fight, I don't think either poll really says much about anything, other than that depending on how you word a poll, you can get very, very different results. That's really not particularly interesting as it pertains to the actual debate here. Stupid polls get stupid answers.

from the wait,-what?!? dept

We've written before about Jay Rosen's excellent explanation of "the church of the savvy," in which political reporters seem more focused on describing the "horse race" aspect of politics rather than the truth. It's the old story in which the press ignores, say, a really good concept because "politicians won't support it." A key giveaway for a "savvy" post is to focus on "what the polls say" rather than what reality says. That doesn't mean that polls are never useful or shouldn't be reported on -- but when they get in the way of the actual story, it can make for ridiculous results.

And finally, a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday morning shows people say 53-31 that the CIA's program did "produce important information that could not have been obtained any other way."

Now, an actual reporter might point out that (1) these Americans are wrong and (2) that it doesn't fucking matter whether or not torture works -- it's still reprehensible. But, instead, Blake concludes that, boy, this sure is a loss for the Democrats:

And as long as people believe torturing terrorism detainees leads to valuable information, the CIA's interrogation program — and torture in general — are unlikely to face a major public backlash.

This is the unhappy reality being confronted by Democrats who had hoped to make a splash with the CIA report.

So the only "reality" in the article is the fact that the public's depraved position is bad for one particular party. Apparently, it's not bad for "humanity" or common sense or human rights or America. It's just bad for one party? Rather than actually educating the public -- which reporters are supposed to be doing -- the focus is just on what these polling numbers mean for torture -- presented in the same way one might discuss the polling numbers for a regular election.

This isn't a political horse race we're talking about here. This is about a fundamental issue of human rights, and the press is acting like all that matters is torture's polling numbers?

from the small-sample-sizes dept

Many people seem to assume that any internet-based poll is, inherently, unreliable as compared to other polling methods. However, Nate Silver has taken a look at how a variety of polls fared in the 2012 Presidential election and found that many of the internet polls did quite well, outperforming other methods:

...some of the most accurate firms were those that conducted their polls online.

The final poll conducted by Google Consumer Surveys had Mr. Obama ahead in the national popular vote by 2.3 percentage points – very close to his actual margin, which was 2.6 percentage points based on ballots counted through Saturday morning.

Ipsos, which conducted online polls for Reuters, came close to the actual results in most places that it surveyed, as did the Canadian online polling firm Angus Reid. Another online polling firm, YouGov, got reasonably good results.

This isn't to say (of course) that online polling is always accurate. It still very much depends on methodology (some online polls didn't do very well at all). But, it should put to rest the idea that online polling is inherently flawed or inaccurate.